In the last movie, you saw a simple example of using a regular external strobe, both with…and without a softbox or diffuser, to help get some light into your macro scenes.…There are dedicated macro flash units that you might want to consider if you get serious…about macro photography, especially if you get serious about macro flash photography.…You may have heard of a ring light. That is a type of flash that goes right around the…edge of your lens, and has a ring of lights.…I don't have one here, because I just don't really recommend using a ring light. It leads…to a very flat kind of lighting. And, it also creates a very specific kind of reflection…inside anything that's shiny in your scene, like water droplets, or people's eyes, or things like that.…

I prefer something like this. It's maybe a little unwieldy, but this is a twin light.…This is one made by Canon. There are lots of variations of this on the market.…And, what I like about this is it gives me a lot of flexibility with the positioning…

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Released

3/29/2013

It's a small world, and capturing it with a photograph can be challenging. In this course, photographer, author, and teacher Ben Long takes you on a fantastic voyage into the realm of the tiny, detailing the gear and shooting techniques necessary to capture extreme close-ups of everything from products to posies.

After touring the possibilities of macro photography, the course details essential gear at several price levels, including lenses, flashes, and other accessories. Next, Ben explores the special challenges of macro photography: dealing with moving subjects, working with extremely shallow depth of field, focusing, lighting, and more.

The course also explores advanced close-up tools and post-processing techniques, such as using Adobe Photoshop to "stack" multiple shots to yield wider depth of field than a single shot can convey.